January has been a bit of a blur… February is nearly upon us. Have you achieved those New Year resolutions? Have you broken them already or not started them? Can you even remember what they are? There's still 11 months to go so no need to panic just yet… 

At Search, one of our resolutions was to continue to build on the great start we made with our charity fundraising activities in 2011 - and we're determined to make sure that doesn't slip down the to-do list. In June we established a Scottish Charity Committee and asked our consultants which charities they'd most like to support for the year ahead. 

Children 1st, Maggies, Guide Dogs, Age Concern, CHAS, National MS Society and Women's Aid were all selected as the main focus for our fundraising activities and all in all we raised just over £18,000. We think that's what you'd call a great start by anyone's standard, and it didn't even feel like hard work, with much of that raised through our inaugural East v's West football match, cocktail parties, and some dress down days. Who knew such serious business could be so much fun?! 

Well, this year we're planning to beat this figure by having more fun, our charity committee is going national and we're aiming to reach the stage where we can consider foundation status… one step at a time. There's 11 months to get there and lots of fundraising activities to plan to make 2012 a year we can be proud of!