I'm in the middle of designing a website and I'm putting up a "join our mailing list" page and I don't know where to start.

What I'm looking for is:
Name
Email
Affiliation (school or group)
Spam blocker where you have to enter funny looking txt to be verified as a real person

And then a check box to ask if it is OK to be added to our mailing list and receive news about our events.

Is there a way to set up a program that automatically adds the people signing up to our mailing list? If so, how is that done?

FYI: I'm using bluehost

Then an unsubscribe feature

I have no idea where to start. Can I get some help please? Thanks

Hi,
I realize that you think you "over your head" here, and probably a bit uninitiated in this.
BlueHost is your ISP; seems to be a good one.
They will host 100 databases, give you PHP5, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Perl, CGI, etc. This I could find out by visiting their website and having them try to sell me. All the tools are in place.
You must create a database to house your mailing list (one of the 100) and have a CGI process an HTML form to populate the database. This paragraph describes what you have to do to achieve your objective, but I am not a customer and cannot access the system as you can.
I just do not know what scripts they have in their libraries. I did not say it was easy, but you may learn something along the way. I am not averse to assistance, but I need you to see what you have available to help more.
Peace,
Clarke
PS that is captcha to verify that it is a person, a university project and available for free with a search of that term.