Me? Make a webpage?!?!

(If you're impatient, just skip to the last paragraph.)
I'm a member of my schools' chapter of the American Chemical Society. There used to be a good group, but it fizzled off when its leading members graduated, so now it's essentially a new group that's forming. We've got some experienced teachers who are willing to show us how to run meetings, etc, so it's likely that the group will stay active.
Why am I posting about this? Because I'm a Biology/CIS double major and they want a website and message board (most members are natural science majors). I wasn't able to attend the meeting where this was discussed, but during class a classmate asked me if I would be interested (I've got at least a week to think about it). She didn't mention anything about complexity, but I'll assume for now that it'll be pretty simple.
I'd loooove to put on my resume that I was the local chapter of the ACS' web guy, but right now I know nearly nothing about making a webpage. I've been playing with some HTML-editing tools that came with Mandrake 8.1, but other than that, it's a foriegn world.
My question is this: If I accept this position, will I be able to learn well enough on-the-fly?
I'll post more specifics as I get them.

I only have a few moments to type, but here's a few quick pointers:

Find a WYSYWYG HTML editor.
Punch "vbulletin" or "forum software free" into google.
Look up how to make a RedHat Linux server.
Download redhat linux (or freebsd, etc.) and set a server up with it. Then install Apache Web Server and add the vbulletin or free forums you find .

As far as being able to learn it in time, yes, I would say that is possible. You'd be shocked how quickly you can learn things about computers with a bit of effort .

I already am.
I'm pretty sure that the school will provide the hosting, so the big issue is how to make a decent web page. Uploading it will be simple.

well HTML is very easy to learn. It's kind of a "common sense" language, where the tags describe the action taking place:

example: <table> <--that tag starts a table. </table> ends the table. If you start doing HTML tables will help you get a uniform look to your pages across multiple browsers.

If you're running linux it may be difficult to find a good graphics program to build images for your site. Of course at your school you may to be able to use photoshop or a similar program on a PC or MAC......

This is my personal opinion but I really like using macromedia's Fireworks 4......it's a great, easy to use graphics program that ports directly to macromedia's wysiwyg HTML editor, Dreamweaver.

Anyways, keep your page size in mind as you build....otherwise it'll take forever to load if you use too much graphics.

I'm studying web design in college right now, if you have anymore questions i'd be happy to help but i'm sure there are also some more experience people out there......i think adobvs is a web designer by profession.

PM me if you have any questions, or just throw it in this thread.

For a free forums system try phpBB - www.phpbb.com - this will also require php - www.php.org - and mysql - www.mysql.org

http://www.ikonboard.com is a good, free board. doesnt REQUIRE mysql or ssi but you can use them both.

one site that could help with html is www.lissaexplains.com/intro.shtml it helped me before.