[Zope] What is the best way to do this?

[Alex Gould]

	Hello zope-masters, I humbly ask your advice on several matters.  I am
making an internal website for a statewide student activist group with
many members.  It will hopefully feature discussion boards, a contact
database, and a calendar of events.  I want to make the users of the
site part of the contact database, so that an entry in the database (a
name, phone number, etc.) can be easily "promoted" into a user with a
password and varying priveliges based on his/her role (volunteer, core
member, board chair, etc.)
	Another feature I want to include is regional specialization - each
contact/user, calendar event, and forum has an associated "region" -
statewide or a specific campus or something in between.  That way a
user's default view of the statewide calendar won't be cluttered by
irrelevant events, and a search through the contact database would by
default only return results pertaining to the user's region.
	I've tried building some custom zClasses but when things start to get
complex the dtml code gets really messy, so I think I should use
external methods to do most of the work.
	Basically I'd appreciate any advice on how to put these ideas into code
or pointers to relevant documentation.  I don't mean to sound like
"here's my very complicated plan, write the code for me", I just need
some tips on how to get started.  Thanks.

 
-------------- 
Building highways to reduce traffic is like 
loosening your belt to reduce obesity.