Final Mercy Communications Café takes place for 2025

The final Mercy Communications Café for 2025 took place on Zoom on 19th of November 2025 and focused on social media use in the Mercy World.

We invited some communications practitioners and experts from the Mercy World to share some of their tips on using social media to tell stories from the Mercy World and to engage people in their mission and ministry.

We welcomed attendees from Ireland (Mercy College Coolock, West of Ireland, Dublin, Cork, Kildare), England (London, Manchester), Scotland (Glasgow), Wales, USA (Pittsburgh, Connecticut, Nebraska, Philadelphia, Pensylvania, Rhode Island, North Carolina, Maryland), New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington), Canada (Newfoundland), Kenya, Philippines, and Australia (Sydney, Melbourne).

Our first presenter was Roz Parr who serves as the Communications & Social Media Associate for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. Her responsibilities include managing several social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky and Pinterest. Roz shared some insights into how she uses the various social media platforms for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. One of the key takeaways from her presentation was her comment that in using social media as Mercy Organisations we are adding goodness to the conversations that are taking place on social media.

Our second presenter was Luke Watkins, Communications Manager for Mercy Volunteer Corps, where he leads the communication strategies across web, social media, marketing, and design in order to share the stories of Mercy Volunteers.

Luke shared an overview of how he apples different campaigns to the different social media platforms. He shared how impactful it has been to do 'Instagram Takeovers'. We love that idea.

Our final presenter on the night was Sr Cathy Edge RSM a member of the Institute in Britain, where she’s spent years weaving compassion into classrooms and chaplaincy corridors. Online, she’s affectionately known as @KnittingNun, where she occasionally swaps theological reflection for tangled yarn, purl stitches or even baking a cake. Cathy made the case for staying on X (Twitter) saying that while there are many reasons not to be there as a Mercy Organisation, we should not allow all of the goodness to be removed from our social media platforms. She posed the question too as to whether Catherine McAuley, if she were here, would be on Twitter (X)? We intend to explore that further in an upcoming episode of our Mercy Echoes Podcast with Cathy.

Asked about the place of humour and dancing on social media - especially on Tik Tok, the presenters and participants all felt there is room for good humour at the appropriate time. Many of those in attendance praised the Thursday Throwback images that the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas share on their socials.

The Communications Café was hosted by MIA's Head of Communications Brenda Drumm. On the night Brenda let the conversations and questions flow and has kept her presentation on Tik Tok for another time.

What is the Mercy Communications Café?

The Communications Café is an online space for those working in communications across the Mercy World and for those involved in any way with communicating Mercy.

We invite guest speakers to speak to topical issues in communications and give space to communications people from the Mercy world to engage and network. We look forward to re-opening the Communications Café in 2026.

Join our mailing list

If you would like to be added to our email list for the Mercy Communications Café please let us know. If you would like to suggest a speaker or a topic you can also do so by email. Email: brendadrumm@mercyinternational.ie.