TO say 2011 was a great year for us would be an exaggeration.

But it will be ungrateful of us to call it a terrible year.

It’s more apt to say this was a fairly good year that was full of challenges.

That is the nature of life and business.

We can only learn from those challenges so we can improve.

We have had our ups and downs but we are grateful for what we achieved as a newspaper.

Our circulation figures have continued to steadily climb up and so has the traffic on our website.

For this, we are indebted to our loyal readers who buy the newspaper every week.

It is precisely because of their support that we have made it this far.

We at the Sunday Express don’t take this support for granted for we know the economic crisis has hit hard on people’s incomes.

We are humbled when, even during these hard times and in light of competition, readers continue to buy our paper.

We might be the only Sunday paper in this country but that doesn’t mean we are entitled to being a Sunday paper of choice.

We know we have to strive to get better stories, expand our coverage and bring a new perspective on the market.

We have tried to do that but we will be the first ones to acknowledge that we need to do more.

Of course we have broken some important stories this year.

Yes, we have had some investigative stories this year.

Yet more still needs to be done.

There are many untold stories in the districts.

There are stories of corruption, cronyism, abuse of power, injustices, human right violations and many more bad things that are waiting to be written.

There are stories of hope, courage, determination, empowerment and many more good things we are yet to write.

We can only say, with your support, we will get there.

We would like to thank the advertisers for their support that has made it possible for us to remain in business in these difficult times.

Our printers and distributors have been great.

So have been the vendors and outlets that push our newspaper on the market.

To produce a good newspaper you need a team of dedicated reporters, subeditors and designers.

We are fortunate to have such people.

To single out one of them will be unfair for they have all done well this year.

Our marketing and accounts departments have done a tremendous job this year. Lastly, we would like to wish our readers a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Take it easy on the bottle and slowdown on the roads.

Please note that this is our last edition this year.

The next edition will be on January 8.