Notification message

Hello, I have a list in SP.  The records are all MEetings with an attendee.  This list was exported to SP from Access.  

The SP calendar is in a shared calendar.  There are a few users. (Might not be impt)

I need the attendee to receive either a notification or an email.  
I have read a few posts and it seems the email notification can only be done through a sort of workflow and with code (I think in the SP designer)

Knowing that the attendees will not be viewing this shared calendar, is a notification worthless?   I guess the only notification left is for an email sent to attendee.  

It also seems that if the SEND button is not pressed for each calendar entry, the attendee will never receive any notification either by email or a msg box since the owner never accepted the invitation emAil as one was never sent. (It's an exported list from access to sp calendar)

How best to alert the attendee?

Thank you

FYI: I am not too well versed with SP.