What happens when your vision outgrows the container you built for it.

This month, I realised something important: for years, Reboundog has been trying to build a cathedral inside a garden shed. The vision kept expanding — humane innovation, cross‑sector convening, relational field‑building — but the infrastructure, language, and legacy structures were still shaped by an earlier chapter.

It’s a strange feeling when your work evolves faster than the container holding it.
You look around and realise the walls are too close, the ceiling too low, and the tools on the shelves belong to a different era of your thinking.

That’s where Reboundog found itself at the start of 2026.

The Garden Shed: What No Longer Fits

The “shed” wasn’t wrong — it was simply built for a different purpose.

Those who've been part of this journey from the beginning may well remember my trying to explain my 'cathedral' vision focused around this non-hub-centric fractal picture,

into which I then continually diluted my vision with:

• animal welfare /pet‑sector framing
• a low‑cost membership model
• the Pet Justice Founder identity
• language centred on disenfranchised people, not humane innovation
• structures that made sense years ago, but not now

These were the foundations of Reboundog’s early journey.
They served their purpose.
But they were never meant to house the work that’s emerging today.

The Cathedral: What Reboundog Is Actually Becoming

Over the past year, something larger has been taking shape:

• cross‑sector conversations
• humane innovation as a field
• relational spaces where trust forms
• federation‑aligned participation
• global & place-based dialogues that dissolve silos
• a convening identity, not a pet‑sector identity

This is cathedral‑scale work — not in size, but in intention.

It requires:

• height
• resonance
• openness
• structure that invites collaboration
• language that matches the altitude
• ecosystem architecture

And it requires letting go of the shed.

The Moment of Clarity

This month, I retired the old membership model and unpublished the Pet Justice Founder pages. Not because they were wrong — but because they belonged to a chapter that has now closed.

Simon Robinson succinctly observed the moment of clarity in his write-up of Reboundog's first in-person Sofa Meet-up.
https://medium.com/soul-guided-systems/reimagining-cumbria-soul-guided-systems-in-practice-3025ff7fc95d

It was an intentionally different kind of gathering — not a panel, not a presentation, not a showcase of expertise — but a conversation.

That difference mattered.

The conversation brought together a small but deliberately diverse group. Spencer Hodgetts, founder of Reboundog Ltd, convened the dialogue as part of a new quarterly series exploring the regeneration of Cumbria.

The intention, as Spencer explained at the outset, was simple and quietly radical: to create space for real dialogue about the regeneration of Cumbria. Not dialogue shaped by pre-designed solutions, external labels, or professional distance — but conversation grounded in lived experience, listening and curiosity.

What followed was one of those rare discussions where connections begin to reveal themselves — not because they are forced, but because people are genuinely paying attention.

The recording of this livestreamed in-person event will be up on https://www.youtube.com/@reboundogtv later this week.

Reboundog is stepping into the work it was always meant to do.
And that means clearing space for what’s emerging.

What’s Emerging Now

You’ll see this shift reflected across everything:

• a new framing for the Sofa Podcast
• a new thumbnail tagline: Conversations Where Humane Innovation Begins

• a new framing for the Sofa Meet-ups as placed-based
• a new participation model (not a membership)
• a clearer identity as a cross‑sector convener
• a move toward federation‑aligned collaboration
• a deeper commitment to relational field‑building

This isn’t a rebrand.
It’s a maturation.

This Russ Gaskin observation resonates at that core https://horizonsofchange.substack.com/p/dialogic-systems-change

If systems are continuously recreated through the conversations and interactions among people within them, then the most direct way to change systems is to change the conversations. Not to diagnose the system and then communicate findings about it, but to shift who is in conversation, how they’re engaging, and how they’re generating new shared meaning. This is why dialogic approaches aren’t simply preferable to purely diagnostic ones—for transformational change in complex systems, they’re necessary.

NEW

Aligned Contributor Spotlight

Aligned Contributor Spotlight gives values‑aligned businesses and organisations a way to share their work within the Reboundog ecosystem, with each Spotlight curated for ethos‑fit.

Reboundog Events & Spotlight

Events Listings

Reboundog operates on a steady annual rhythm of convenings. Dates for all 2026 events are listed below.

Reboundog publishes dates in advance so our community can plan ahead. Topics and guests emerge closer to each event, guided by what’s most relevant in the field of humane innovation at that moment. This keeps our conversations alive, timely, and grounded in what the ecosystem actually needs.

Reboundog Events & Spotlight

The observant may notice that this issue was not published as per the above calendar on Tues 27th Jan. This was to allow time to personally inform members that I'd be retiring the old membership model before I announced it publicly here.

If You’re Building Your Own Cathedral…

Maybe you’re in a similar place — realising that the container you built years ago no longer fits the work you’re doing today.

If so, you’re not alone.

Reboundog is stepping into its next chapter, and if this resonates with your own journey, stay close. We’re building this field together.

Thank you for walking with me through this transition. Reboundog has always been about creating the conditions where humane innovation can emerge — and this year, those conditions are becoming clearer, stronger, and more aligned than ever.

If this edition sparked something for you, feel free to reply or share it with someone navigating their own evolution.

PS: Why Durham Cathedral photo? Because it has a Sanctuary Knocker