#share77k and our flagship charity, Rockinghorse

When Search Seven's Managing Director Gavin Willis founded the company in 2011, he set out to prove that you could grow a successful business that delivers results for clients whilst making a positive impact to charities - whether that be through knowledge-sharing or fundraising. He pledged to donate up to 7% of the company’s annual profits to charities and local community projects, and chose Rockinghorse as the company's flagship charity. Since then we've raised over £30,000 for the children's charity.

In 2018, when we launched #share7 in celebration of our 7th anniversary, Rockinghorse led the way for our seven nominated charities, receiving a dedicated £10,000 from the £20,000 we raised in one year. As we proudly launch our #share77k campaign with the target of bringing our fundraising total to £77k, we have set aside £50,000 for Rockinghorse. Here’s why the children's charity is so important to Gavin: “When I was a few months old I had pneumonia and the Trevor Mann Baby Unit nursed me back to health. Years later, my godson Ted was born scoring zero on the Apgar Scale (an assessment of how a baby is doing at birth, which determines whether they are ready to meet the world without medical assistance). Ted had some swelling on the brain so he spent some time in intensive care and five days on a cooling mat to keep his body temperature down to reduce swelling and further damage. We were told things didn’t look good. It was because of the support of the exceptional staff and the ground-breaking equipment at TMBU that he pulled through. The work all the staff put in to nurse sick babies back to health is awe-inspiring, and so that’s why we decided to choose Rockinghorse as our flagship charity.” We spoke to Terrina Barnes, Corporate Fundraising Manager at Rockinghorse, to find out how the money raised from #share7 has benefited the children’s charity: “We have recently used the money from Search Seven to purchase a resuscitaire to enable training of resuscitations skills at birth to benefit the neonatal service at the Trevor Mann Baby Unit (TMBU) in Brighton. The Panda Resuscitaire is essential for teaching the skills required to resuscitate an infant at birth. It is a complex system and mirrors those that would be used in clinical practice. “The training resuscitaire is used for day-to-day in situ simulation and is also used in the two national newborn resuscitation courses run by the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust (BSUH). The resuscitaire allows trained staff to teach essential resuscitation skills to doctors, nurses, midwives and advanced nurse practitioners both in situ on the ward and on nationally recognised resuscitation courses. The need for resuscitation at birth is unpredictable and it is essential that any member of the TMBU neonatal service needs to be able to promptly and effectively resuscitate newborns when the need arises, therefore reducing risk to any newborn infant who needs resuscitation. "The support Search Seven has given to Rockinghorse over the last nine years has been incredible. It is amazing that a company the size of Search Seven is making such a huge impact, allowing us to continue to support The Trevor Mann Baby Unit. "We are so pleased to be part of the #share77k campaign and working with the other charities Search Seven are supporting. We can now plan with the Trevor Mann Baby Unit what their next project is they are looking for funding for. On behalf of the charity, I’d like to express our sincere thanks to Gavin and the team at Search Seven. We cannot thank them enough for their ongoing support and managing events to support Rockinghorse." Visit the Rockinghorse website to find out more about the local children's charity.