Have you checked the POE website? The POE Cookbook includes examples of an IRC bot, of a process that repeats periodically, and of process making database calls. You may wish to look at these and other of the examples there for some ideas to work from.

Hope that helps.

(I would suggest you see examples in the cookbook under "IRC Programming," as well as that for "DBI Helper Processes," "Event Handlers," "Looping,", "Recurring Alarms," "Useful Things," and "Waiting".)

Update (25 Jul 2004):
Added list of possible examples to examine.