Need help.

I am in charge of setting up a neighborhood association website for a 1400 household neighborhood.

I found this place, where I’ve played around and set up a website - their sites are free or very low cost.

Features I like about this - I can turn off comments for site members; and once folks are members, I can send an e-mail to ALL MEMBERS at one time to notify them that new information has been posted, without having to have a separate e-mail list in my own address book. There are different pages for different things - a calendar to post events - a page for photos, etc.

What I don’t like - it appears for a group website, people can join only if they get an invitation from a current member. so new households can’t just go to the website and sign up. This is a minor problem, since I have the association e-mail in the “welcome” page and they can just send me an e-mail asking for the invitation. But it’s unwieldy.

And what I don’t know is this - how much “bandwidth” would I need for 1400 households? The free version has a limited amount, and then there are 3 paid versions with differing amounts of bandwidth. The highest priced version is still less than what it costs the association to mail out ONE newsletter.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a better place to set up this website?