Watermoo’s Journey

Watermoo was a creation of the Surrey Hills Cow Parade. CowParade was born in Switzerland in 1998 and has been staged in more than 80 cities and towns worldwide. Over the years 3,000 cows have been decorated by more than 5,000 artists. CowParade New York had 450 cows and was seen worldwide by 45 million people. The highest-grossing cow was created by designer John Rocha for CowParade Dublin in 2003 – studded with thousands of pieces of Waterford Crystal it was auctioned for $146,000 – quite a lot of moo-lah indeed.

Our very own Surrey Hills Cow Parade saw over 60 brightly decorated fibreglass cows placed in popular landmarks across London and Surrey. The idea was that each cow is ‘Sponsored’ by a business, school or charity and decorated by an artist, then auctioned off for charities in the autumn.

Tim Metson, Cow Parade Leader, has been a long standing contact of The Briars Group and introduced us to the artist Stacey Allan and the charity CLIC Sargent. Briars haven’t looked back since!

Stacey Allan lovingly created the heifer with a group of young people with cancer from the Royal Marsden Hospital. Stacey Allan comments; “Watermoo is bright and colourful and inspired by nature. I wanted to make something eye-catching and uplifting that would make people smile!! A flight of swallows arcs across her back, and they are swooping over patches of native Surrey flowers, look underneath and you’ll discover a belly-full of wild orchids and bluebells!”

CLIC Sargent Director of Fundraising Rachel Kirby-Rider from CLIC Sargent comments:”CowParade Surrey is a great initiative and we’ve really enjoyed being part of it. The children really enjoyed working with Stacey to design their butterflies. We think Watermoo looks fabulous and looks brilliant on display at Waterloo. We’re delighted that the cow will be auctioned to raise money for CLIC Sargent. The money raised from the sale will go towards our vital work supporting children and young people with cancer, and their families. We provide a range of support from the point of diagnosis onwards through our financial grants, social workers, nurses and free accommodation near hospitals. We’re also really grateful to our charity partner Network Rail for giving us the opportunity to show off Watermoo to so many of their customers at Waterloo Station.”

Briars’ CEO, Kate Jolly, comments;”We like to consider ourselves to be an extension of our clients’ businesses here at Briars so we were delighted to be involved in the Cow Parade. We are immensely proud to be able to sponsor our very own entry named Watermoo, wonderfully painted by talented local Surrey artist Stacey Allan. We’re thrilled with the result and delighted to see Watermoo at Waterloo where she is proudly bringing attention to the fantastic work of CLIC Sargent in supporting young people with cancer.”

Briars can not wait to see how well Watermoo is received at the auction, but we are certainly going to be sad to see her go! Please do watch her video and you will be able to see what an amazing journey she has had so far.