We use all of the google services for our website. It took a while to get google calendars figured out, but to be able to share it, you have to create a new calendar, instead of using the default personal one so that it looks like this: http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=2kn7pvk7s1n97qdcuigiplc22k%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York

Once you've created a new calendar and set the shared settings to public, members should be able to view the calendar and if they are invited to the group by e-mail then they can edit, add, and discuss events. I've found it works well because it may pop up with one student saying they'll be late or they'll discuss changing the date in the message board. If you're really technologically savvy, then you can embed these calendars in your website, so that it looks like this:

http://www.batesville.k12.in.us/bhs/staff/ffa/calendar.html

It's not going to show the events right now, because we haven't updated our html so that it's the new calendar embedded, rather than the personal calendar. It's also linked to our facebook group as well. We'll also upload all of our important documents into the google documents server so that members can have access to banquet scripts, chapter & district officer applications, CDE resources, and other important info that they may need at home during evenings or weekends.

If you have any questions on the google applications, let me know - we found that a lot of these are really great to use. I like picasa as well, but I'm not mac literate enough to get it to sync with my iphoto application. Google calendars keep getting easier to use & I know that my students enjoy using it!