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As I noted locally, we now pretty much have the ball in our respective courts, and we are challenged to find the correct direction, on our local levels.  This can lead to some truly great outcomes, but it may also find greater challenges for locals, especially those already struggling.  Local councils are an enigma it seems, either poorly led, or simply overwhelmed by National directives and erratic direction.  Time will tell.  I hope the true Spirit wins out and comes out stronger.  

Somewhere I saw that the number of military memberships overall is around 25,000. If that's true, then waiving the national fee for those youth will remove around $2 million. A lot of money, but not catastrophic although it likely means another increase in the national fee, which might be further amplified by the effect of the ongoing membership drop. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but lawyers work FOR their client, they are not the client. Lawyers give advice based on their evaluation of the law, and just about any other factor, legal or not, they believe relevant, limited only by their creativity and wisdom. (The "other factor" component of the lawyer's advice is immeasurably more complex than mere legal reasoning. The law part is easy.) What a client actually does, that is, what we see them do, is not a reflection of the quality of the legal advice given.  The client could have followed lousy legal advice, or rejected superb legal advice.

Once again, I think youth sports are the winner of SA's recent action. They manage to stay squeaky clean while Scouting has been stuck in the mud since before COVID. The two aren't perfect substitutes (as this thread has established), but they still compete for a finite pool of time, energy, and money. My son is just barely hanging on to Cub Scouts. Sometimes I wonder if he's doing it just to humor me. Most of his favorite den mates dip in and out for youth sports (as does he, occasionally).  The few regulars are mainly "indoor kids." They've tried team sports. It wasn't for them. Now they're in Cub Scouts because they like being part of a team, but the stakes are much lower. I'd like my son to stick with Scouting, but I'm running low on energy. One thing this thread hasn't acknowledged is that sometimes parents just want to see their kid win. I'll surmise it's especially true for fathers and their sons. There's just something primal about seeing your genes rise to the top. Even my wife, who is pretty well-grounded and considers herself above the fray, takes satisfaction in knowing that her son is better than so-and-so's son. This feeling probably drives spending more than most care to admit. With all of the membership changes of the past decade (of which I'm largely supportive), pretty much anyone can become an Eagle Scout if they attend enough merit badge seminars on the weekend. Membership is 1/3 of what it was at the turn of the century, yet the number of new Eagle Scouts per year has remained fairly consistent. For those parents who value excellence in youth programming (and those too sheepish to admit it), it's become more difficult to point to the Eagle Scout award as a mark of superiority. I'm not implying that Scouting is bad (still a huge advocate) or that it needs to change (it's still pretty good), but it's not meeting the needs of some high-achieving families.

Yeah, this is really bad (if true). If you're going to solicit large donations for an endowment, there's a professional and moral obligation to ensure they're protected to the fullest extent. Beyond the endowments, there has probably been a working-class family in every council who gifted their own modest estate in order to have a new health lodge or shooting sports range built at their favorite camp. And now that camp is gone. I'm just glad they're no longer here to see their life's work squandered.