Q&A: Player 1 with Belles & Chimes, Lafayette’s pinball club for women

Belles & Chimes: ‘Serious pinball in what’s becoming our own little community.’ Plus, remember DST time switch tonight. And all the headlines you can take from Friday’s General Assembly wrap

While Danielle Alexander wiped the rest of the day’s competition with an extended, first-place run a few tables over, Michela Phillabaum checked a remaining stash of quarters and contemplated which of the pinball machines she’d test, “just because,” at Lafayette’s North End Pub.

Phillabaum had driven from Kokomo with her husband, Jason, for the monthly competition hosted by the local chapter of Belles & Chimes, a women’s-only pinball club holding monthly sessions since spring 2023. Two hours of competition was up, but she wasn’t done.

“There’s something about it, playing pinball,” Phillabaum said. “It’s something we did growing up. It’s something I still love. … With these ladies, I love everything about what we have going here.”

The Lafayette chapter of Belles & Chimes started in May 2023, as on offshoot of a national organization founded in 2013 and that touts itself as “an international network of inclusive women’s pinball leagues run by women, for women.” The chapters, dozens across the U.S., were famously described by the New York Times this way: “Not Your Father’s Pinball Arcade. But Maybe Your Mother’s.”

On the second Sunday afternoon of the month, a dozen or more Belles & Chimes members play a match play tournament style – three or four randomly selected players on one machine at a time, playing for points over a two-hour session – at North End Pub, next to Market Square Lanes. The winners get swag-style prizes.

Lindsey Sickler (Photo: Dave Bangert)

“No big stakes, no real pressure,” Lindsey Sickler, a teacher at Lafayette’s Sunnyside Intermediate School and founder of the Lafayette chapter, said between turns during a recent Belles & Chimes afternoon. “Just serious pinball in what’s becoming our own little community.”

Question: How did this get started?