The collection has been arranged in two series, of which the first series is the larger. The series are: Records of Flambeau Valley Farms Cooperative and Other Records.
The RECORDS OF FLAMBEAU VALLEY FARMS COOPERATIVE consist of corporate records, but with very few financial records, milk production records, or other records of plant operations. The by-laws were originally written for Flambeau Valley Dairy Cooperative, and apparently used as a model for the Ladysmith Milk Producers' Co-operative Association. Correspondence and related papers include original letters and memoranda, near-print circulars and form letters from various agricultural boards and associations, enclosures, loan application requests from the cooperative for its operating capital, and notices of factor's liens. Most of the letters concern requests for loans (with cooperative stock offered as collateral) from members, replies by the cooperative, and letters written to banks by the cooperative to facilitate such loans. All such loans had to be approved by the cooperative's board of directors, and notations of the board's decisions may be found in the minutes.
Individual forms completed by members requesting loans, containing the same information as found in the minutes (and much of which is also found in the letters) were discarded.
There is a lengthy run of minutes of board of directors' meetings, 1925-1980, in which are noted transactions of routine business and approval or rejection of loan applications. There are also minutes of the annual stockholders' meetings, 1941-1970; and issues of the cooperative's newsletter Flambeauland Dairy News. The remaining records in the collection consist of stock records, mainly stock redemption work sheets prepared during the mid-1970's as the cooperative's economic difficulties encouraged stockholders to redeem their shares.
OTHER RECORDS in the collection consist of two small files of mimeographed minutes of the Dairy Cooperative Institute, 1949-1953; and a 1954 report from an attorneys' and accountants' conference of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.
