False, units are mandated to participate in YPT and adult training. Go read your adult registration form. If you can't figure out how to do it online you are mandated to go in person. Furthermore, though never enforced, councils can mandate that you do your adult leader training in person (which is why when you run a unit adult training report there is that weird little column that shows mandatory in person training but does not ding you as untrained if you completed the online version).  Try again. Every time units decide to not participate in their local council they are weakening the council, they are breaking down the scouting community. Camporees have less energy from less units/scouts, klondikes have less competition, round-tables have less value when fewer people are bringing their knowledge and experience to the table. You are correct, and it's funny how this unit has higher costs because they are going out of council. By refusing to participate in the council of registry they have become a cash cow for the neighboring council. Man it sure is thrifty when that unit pays all those out-of-council fees in neighboring councils. 

A lot of good points, though I think I want to die on this sporting hill. I think a lot of parents pull their kids from scouting to do sports thinking their kid is something special athletically. I had a meeting with a parent at the troop last night, she raised concern that we're losing a PL for the summer to some club baseball team and he might not come back. I told her it's not likely to work out for the kid; he's in 8th grade, he's like only 5ft tall, 90lbs soaking wet, both parents are sub 6fters and fat. Really what it might be is that scouting is too nice; I deal with some of these coaches with my own kids and it's a joke the yarns they spin to recruit kids. What if scouting pushed the hard sell on parents, think along the lines of these dingleberry baseball coaches "You're kids got it, with my mentoring he'll get in shape, learn how to problem solve, have a bunch of fun, learn how to survive in the outdoors, get his eagle scout, and then from there every top end business school and military academy in the nation will want him! rabble rabble rabble". Do you think we can get carve out on the scout is trustworthy for this? 

It would be interesting to see this as a percentage of children.  I'm not sure what that looks like, but I think it was on the order of 25%. 

Technically declining. 2020 to 2023 had a little bump but basically is level, and comparing modern counts to the BSA peak membership in 1970 ... well looks like 2, almost 3 times the single parent households. 

You are well ahead of the curve. The Pack my son participated in was not linked to a troop. Therefore once Cub scouts advanced beyond AOL, if they continued in the program they found a troop under a different charter and left. Older scouts came to Blue & Gold receive them at crossover. Afterwards they were never to be seen again. When we attended Webelos camporee, they encouraged Cubs to visit Scout troops linked under the same charter org in their camps at night. Instead our Pack was left to spend the evening on our own. The troops invited their linked Cub Pack to join them on an overnight campout. We were invited to a day trip. (This was all during Covid years). So the older program was a total mystery. On the plus side, our Pack was free to run the Cubs program how we saw fit and didn't have to share space with a troop (meeting times, activities, storage, etc.) In my experience, if you want to be seen then you must send Den Chiefs and staff Cub events (camporees, day camps, etc.). Look beyond your charter.  Last year a troop in the opposite situation (no linked Cub Scout Pack sponsored by the charter) found the Pack, offered to lead a den meeting during our meeting time at our space, and invited them to go on trips. In turn, 4 of the 5 scouts who crossed-over joined that troop.