At Port Fairy we had (relatively) glorious weather.  And on a day that wasn’t super weather-wise we went to look for shells at the far end of the beach.

To maintain interest across the board (we were a mixed gender group aged between 3 and 43) for longer than five minutes I proposed a ‘shell competition’ where I was the judge with final say on everything – shell categories, winners – yes everything.

And it was very successful.  At the end of the day I think it was because I was a kind judge, taking in to account not JUST the shells but the AGE of the participants and their likelihood of CRYING before awarding 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  And with multiple categories there were lots of winners.

Best shell – I won (haha). Actually there was general agreement that my shell really was the best.

  
And then others like best collection, spottiest shell, most colourful shell, ugliest shell etc. 

   
 I reckon we spent a good hour on this project.  By the time we collected the shells, sorted them in to the judging categories, then judged them …

 And all for free of course.