November’s Awesome Ottawa award goes to Alisa McClain and Pinball Women Ottawa to support the Women’s Provincial Pinball Championship.
Ottawa Pinball Women. Photo: Awesome Ottawa.
“On January 21, we will host the third-ever Women’s Provincial Pinball Championship right here in Ottawa,” says Alisa.
“Pinball Women Ottawa has been building community and connection for over 10 years,” she continues. “A decade ago, if you had gone to a mainstream pinball tournament, you would have been surprised to see a woman or gender-diverse player there, and now we are typically nearly 50 per cent of the players because of the community-building of the women’s league.”
“I am incredibly proud of how we have changed the local pinball scene,” says Alisa. “And due to our amazing community building and regular tournaments, our local competitors will make up a good number of the 16 invited finalists that compete in the Provincial Championship.”
“Hosting this tournament for the first time in Ottawa represents a huge accomplishment in our community-building efforts.”
Alisa is a social worker by day, and describes herself as someone who is focused on building and maintaining a trauma-informed community space for weirdos and non-conformers.
Awesome Ottawa is part of a global movement of self-organizing chapters forwarding the interest of awesome in the universe, $1,000 at a time. At each chapter, 10 or so “trustees” each contribute $100 every month, and review short applications received online to decide on the recipient of the pooled funds — usually a local project, but occasionally a particularly awesome one far away from home. Globally, more than $6 million has already been awarded — $170,000 of that by Awesome Ottawa. For more information, visit awesomeottawa.ca.
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