Hosted by the Friends of the Western Plains Cultural Centre (FOWPCC), the Great Big Western Plains Trivia Challenge ‘Bling It On’ raised about $2,500, said FOWPCC president Greg Marginson.

“It’s an event that can really engage people who don’t know too much about Western Plains Cultural Centre. It’s sort of a non-intimidating way to become familiar, whereas some of the other things we do are about the collection or about art,” Mr Marginson said.

“It raises us about $2,500 and we get quite a few new members out of it, so that works really well too.”

FOWPCC vice president Jodie Benton said the money supported acquisitions for the centre.

“There is no budget in the money that’s received from [Dubbo Regional] Council for the cultural centre to purchase any artworks or to contribute to the upkeep of the objects in the museum. Their budget is very operational,” Ms Benton said.

“Sometimes we’ve done things like worked on having a violin fixed, but more often we’re buying artworks for the gallery side of things. We want the collection here to remain relevant. We want it to continue to be updated so it doesn’t turn into a historical thing.”

Ms Benton said the friends didn’t buy art based on what they liked, but followed the direction of the WPCC.

By raising the money to contribute to the galleries collection it also prevented art from turning into a council debate, Mr Marginson said, which could be damaging to artists.

For about 25 years the FOWPCC has been in existence in various forms, the FOWPCC president said, adapting their role around what is needed at the centre.

“In that time we’ve raised $250,000 and we contributed funds to about one-third of the collection,” he said.

While initially the role of the group included tasks such as catering and welcoming people to the gallery, the friends have changed to be more focused on events, Mr Marginson said.

He said the trivia night was their most profitable function, but they held something about once a month, like trips to visit artists.