The Table, No. 5: Continuity Before the Storm

Friday, 13 March 2026

From the Founding Secretariat

Dear members and partners,

This week’s work brings two kinds of attention together: the practical preparations a small business can make before disruption, and the shared evidence needed to describe the conditions in which businesses operate. Neither task is solved by a checklist alone. A useful checklist must fit the working day of an owner; useful evidence must show where individual experiences point to a wider pattern.

Our second Platform Council session and this week’s continuity letter are different documents with a common purpose: to make the table useful. We are grateful to everyone who has filed a report, joined a session, or helped make the work clearer. The numbers below are our 13 March snapshot, not a measure of every small business represented by the issues before us.

With thanks,
Founding Secretariat

The week at the table

This week’s lead document is Before the storm — a continuity checklist for owners (RC/RS/2026/20, 12 March). It is an open letter from the Resilience Council focused on a question that can be easy to postpone: what would help an owner keep essential work going if an interruption arrived with little warning?

The letter’s value is in the order of attention it invites. Continuity is not only a matter for large organizations with dedicated planning teams. For a small business, preparation has to be workable alongside customers, staff, suppliers, and the ordinary demands of the week. A checklist can help an owner pause, identify what the business depends on, and consider what needs attention before pressure rises. It cannot remove the disruption or guarantee that every plan will hold.

On 13 March, the Platform Council also published the summary record of its second session: RC/PL/2026/SR.2. A summary record is part of how council work stays visible beyond the people in the room. It gives members a shared reference point for the session and helps keep discussion connected to the evidence-gathering process, rather than leaving the work as an informal conversation.

Two evidence submissions were also filed this week: RC/TR/2026/S.1, Small consignments, uncertain delivery windows, and RC/RS/2026/S.1, Continuity planning before disruption. These titles identify the subjects placed before the councils; they do not, by themselves, establish a finding. Submissions are inputs to review. The councils must examine reports together before deciding whether an issue meets the five-part pattern test: Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread, and Corroboration.

That distinction matters. A single account can be important without yet demonstrating a recurring practice. The work ahead is to listen carefully, compare reports, and make clear what the evidence can—and cannot—support.

By the numbers

As of 13 March 2026, Reseated had 214 seated members in 43 countries. Members had filed 433 reports from 47 countries. The member-country count and report-country count describe different things: where members are seated, and where reports were filed.

The report totals by council are:

• Platform: 296
• Cashflow: 104
• Fair Play: 16
• Red Tape: 8
• Trade: 7
• Team: 2

These listed council counts add to 433. Platform reports make up the largest share of the current total, while the smaller counts matter too: the pattern process is designed to assess evidence across volume, frequency, consistency, spread, and corroboration, not to treat every report as a settled conclusion. The snapshot is an account of what has been filed so far, not a ranking of which concerns deserve attention.

For context, the United Nations estimates that micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises account for about 90% of businesses, 60–70% of employment, and around 50% of GDP worldwide. The International Labour Organization estimates that MSMEs provide about 70% of employment globally, and that around 80% operate in the informal economy. These global estimates use different measures and are not Reseated membership statistics. They help explain why practical conditions for small businesses warrant careful attention.

From the table

An owner taking part in the resilience discussion described the problem in ordinary terms: when an unexpected interruption affects a key part of the working day, decisions that seem small can quickly compete for attention. Who needs to be contacted first? Which tasks can wait? Where are the details needed to keep work moving, and can someone else find them if the owner is occupied?

The account was shared without a business name or identifying details. Its point was not that one plan fits every firm. A person working alone, a shop with a small team, and a business dependent on deliveries will have different priorities. The common difficulty is finding time to think through those dependencies before an interruption happens, rather than trying to reconstruct them in the middle of it.

That is why a continuity checklist should be an aid, not another standard that owners are expected to satisfy perfectly. A useful first pass might be to note the people and services the business relies on, decide which information needs to be accessible, and identify one practical step that could reduce confusion if normal operations are interrupted. The right step will differ by business. The principle is to make preparation proportionate and usable.

The member’s account also points to a limit of individual preparation: some interruptions depend on conditions outside an owner’s control. Reseated’s role is not to imply that every problem can be solved through better planning. It is to help owners share what they encounter, and to distinguish the steps within their control from recurring practices or conditions that may call for a broader response.

Coming up

The next phase is continued council evidence review. Reports will be considered in relation to the five-part pattern test, and councils will determine whether the available material supports a draft fix for public consultation. Evidence gathering is not the same as a finding, and a draft is not an adopted standard. Each stage has a separate purpose.

The Rules of Procedure are also due to go to an Assembly ballot on 19 March. The ballot is an important part of establishing how members will conduct shared work; as of this digest, the result has not been recorded. Members should look to the Assembly’s circulated materials for the text and the voting arrangements.

Open Tables are intended to meet monthly, with sittings designed to make participation possible across regions. The next sitting is part of that continuing schedule; members should use the Secretariat’s notices for the confirmed date, format, and agenda. Council sessions and evidence submissions remain open to member participation through the established channels.

For now, the practical priority is to keep evidence specific and attributable to a practice, while protecting the anonymity of members who have not chosen a public seat. If a report describes a problem, include what happened, how often, over what period, and what records or other accounts may help corroborate it. Those details help the councils assess patterns responsibly.

One thing you can do

Set aside ten minutes this week to identify one dependency your business would need to manage during an interruption. Write down one contact, record, service, or decision that would be difficult to access in the moment—and one small step that could make it easier to find or handle. Keep the step proportionate to your circumstances. If it reveals a recurring practice affecting your business, consider filing a report with the relevant council, including dates and supporting detail where available.

One clear note can help you prepare. A well-described report can also help the Assembly determine whether an experience is part of a wider pattern.