Transparency Statement
Hello! Welcome to the new GVTAA website, we hope you love it! If you have any suggestions for content and would like to speak with the webmaster (Sophie) - please don’t hesitate to contact us.
We wanted to take a moment to be completely transparent. The GVTAA board is made up of volunteers, always has been and always will be. GVTAA board members do not receive any payment for their time or services. Board members contribute solely to advance our profession, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
GVTAA is launching online merch for the first time [insert wow emoji] - and we may experience some trial and error while we figure it all out. We appreciate your patience, and hope you are as excited for cool vet med merch! The goal of the merch is to provide cool things for the coolest profession (vet med, woo!). We aim for $0 and 0% profit. We are utilizing SquareSpace & Printful for our merch. Printful gives us an estimate of how much it will cost us to make an item when it is ordered and an estimate of shipping. An unfortunate downside to Printful is that various items will ship from different fulfillment centers - as everything is made to order, their different facilities specialize in creating different items. So shipping costs are much higher than they would be if we stocked the items and shipped when ordered.
Why don’t we stock items and ship ourselves? | Because volunteered time is not always flexible or on-the-ball time, and we do not want any delays when you place an order. We also love that it’s better for the environment - no surplus, no excess, only goods created as needed.
Thank you to all of our members that responded to the GVTAA merchandise survey, your input was critical in our merch launch!
All monetary income from our members (sign up, merch, etc) goes to hosting conferences, paying speakers, hosting other GVTAA events, and compensating our artist collaborators. We have taken great pride in collaborating with talented artists for our merch, and we hope you love their work too.
More merch will be on it’s way soon [insert secret shush emoji] !
If you have any questions at all about the board, how GVTAA operates, or anything at all - please do not hesitate to reach out via the Contact Us Form or through social media (Facebook, Instagram). We are an open book, and we are happy to answer your questions and fuel your curiosities!
We hope you’re having a delightful day,
-Sophie Van Etten, LVT
GVTAA Board, Webmaster & Social Media Manager