The non-profit committee that runs Chapeau’s Harrington Community Centre has started raising money for more than $40,000 of repairs needed to the bowling alley it operates in the basement of the hall.
The bowling facility was built in the 1960s and features two five-pin lanes. It hosts a weekly league with 10 teams and 60 players, and is also rented out for parties and events. It serves a large geographical area, being the only bowling facility on the Quebec side until Aylmer and the only one between the Ontario towns of Deep River and Renfrew.
At the start of the 2024-25 season, the alley’s pinsetter machines – which reset the pins once they are knocked down – started experiencing malfunctions. During the league’s final weekend in March 2026, the pinsetters failed completely, forcing the facility to shut down until new parts can be acquired.
The pinsetters were installed in the year 2000, and according to committee president David Brisard they were likely about 25 years old at that time.
“The life expectancy of them [isn’t good], and nobody works on them anymore. They’re obsolete,” said Brisard.
The committee has ordered new machines from Germany, a project that carries a price tag of $46,000. There are no qualified technicians left to service the current machines.
The committee’s two prior attempts to find funding for the project were unsuccessful. In February, it submitted an application through the MRC Pontiac’s Fonds régions et ruralité (FRR) 4 program, consisting of money left over from last year’s envelope. The project was not selected.
An application was also submitted under the MRC’s FRR 3 stream earlier this year. Following the May council of mayors meeting, the committee learned it had been unsuccessful again.
Since then, the committee has started raising money to fund the repairs. They began these efforts with a draw for a side-by-side vehicle from Campbell’s Polaris which brought in over $8,600.
“I was very pleased with it, but we’re very frustrated with the MRC,” Brisard said of the fundraiser.
MRC Pontiac socio-economic development coordinator Sabrina Ayres, who chairs the FRR committee, said that the MRC’s FRR 3 program received 18 submissions, totalling just over $1.1 million in requests, for an envelope of only $500,000.
“While the project in question is meaningful, other applications demonstrated a stronger overall alignment with the program’s evaluation criteria,” she wrote in an email.
She said the FRR 3 program’s criteria were for projects that “enrich how residents live, interact, and engage within their communities—bringing energy, vibrancy, and opportunities for participation into everyday life.”
Gene O’Brien said she has had a load of fun in the 15 years she’s been bowling with the league. She said because of the league’s handicap rule, which is meant to equalize participants of different skill levels, her team of inexperienced bowlers once managed to lift the first-place trophy.
“We were all pretty bad bowlers. The odd time we bowled good,” she laughed, adding that she once got the award for worst bowler, a good-natured award the league gives out every year to the bowler with the lowest overall score.
O’Brien, also president of the Chapeau Agricultural Society, played a hand in forming the Harrington committee. She said the facility was in danger of shutting down around 2010 when the previous owner, the Pembroke Catholic Diocese, was going to close the hall’s doors due to a long list of needed repairs.
She said the committee was able to get grants to put a new roof on and renovate the interior of the hall, but added that even then there was no money for the pinsetter machines.
In addition to being a popular community activity, Brisard said the bowling alley accounts for about 30 per cent of the annual revenue for Harrington Hall, which hosts parties, weddings, funerals and other events.
“It’s our little gem. That’s what keeps the hall going,” he said, adding that without that money, which he said represents about 30 percent of the hall’s income, the committee would have to find other ways to keep the facility running.
The committee had also hoped to refinish the floor, which is showing signs of wear from over the years, but it will have to abandon that wish until more money can be secured.
As for the bowling league, O’Brien and Brisard are hoping to get back behind the lanes this fall. Brisard said the new pinsetters should arrive early this fall, just before the league is due to start up again.
Brisard said he has been pleased with the community’s support for the project, including a donation of $5,000 from the Chapeau Lions, but said the group will still need around $32,000 for the project.
While the Municipality of L’Isle-aux-Allumettes is looking for other funding programs, Brisard expects the committee will have to raise the money itself.
“We’re very frustrated, but hopefully there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
