I have sent all of you hero members + Hobbes accounts for
http://start.retrouprising.com
From there you can see recent posts - not posts in special sections like hero's only.
and you can use google talk. I have not tried this but you should be able to use google talk as a chat room / group chat.
If you already had a start.ru account then you might need to click Add Stuff -> Google Apps -> click Add it now under Google Talk
You might need to add the users to your account. They are userName at retrouprising.com example
tenser@retrouprising.com.
Let me know if you like it and if it should be for other user groups.