Running “upcoming events” in my sidebar

This is a long question: I want to be able to make brief posts in my blog about upcoming community events — public meetings, concerts, etc — and give them a unique category, perhaps something like “events.” The time stamp on these posts would be the time and date of the event.

I want to place on my sidebar some code that would show these events in reverse order (no more than 10, perhaps), meaning the event closest to occuring would be on top, the furthest away would be on the bottom. These events that have ended would not appear.

Meanwhile, on the main body of my blog, my other posts would appear normally, the “events” category being excluded.

Am I asking for too much? Or has someone done this before and can they point me in the right direction?