Liz Oldfield

I am a registered landscape architect with over 15 years in the field. I have significant experience working for local government and private practice on the design of open spaces including regional parks, local parks, beach reserves, archaeological sites, war memorial reserves, cemeteries, former quarries and landfills, play spaces, residential subdivisions and commercial landscapes. You […]
Alison Rawley

My key responsibility is project management of the Yardstick suite of benchmarking tools. This involves regular updates to the online tools on the Yardstick website, development of new survey and benchmark projects for clients, technical support, data analysis and reporting. It also involves liaison with partner industry organisations in Canada, Australia and New Zealand and […]
Elise Young

I am passionate about our sector and making a difference. I always produce work to the best of my ability and take the client on the journey with me. I like to positively challenge thinking and the way things have always been done to continually seek better solutions. My role involves working with a variety […]
Paul Wilson

My primary role is to manage the team at Xyst’s Napier office and to assist our other consultants to bring innovative, best practice solutions for our clients. I have deep knowledge across the key areas of Xyst’s services and share it for our collective benefit. I’m the go-to guy for technical issues and problem solving. I […]
Manakau Cemetery Plot Identification

Xyst supplied Horowhenua District Council with an accurate detailed plot schedule of whom is buried in each plot and identified where adjustments need to be made to create a one source of accurate information. Xyst supplied Horowhenua with a report on recommendations that align with best practices on the process from Booking to Interment
Cemetery Capacity Investigation – Future Planning

We worked with Porirua City Council to understand their existing cemetery capacity and the future space required, to ensure Council can provide interment options for the next 30 years. Xyst considered a wide range of factors, including future utilisation of the existing land, to ensure it could be used to its full potential. The report […]
Cemetery Concept Plans and Capacity Analysis

Xyst undertook site analysis with key staff, an assessment of the statutory framework, a two-stage public engagement process, mana whenua engagement, and community board and council engagement in order to understand the cemetery network constraints and opportunities and to prepare and test concept plans and network priorities. Once completed, we analysed the plans to provide […]
Memorial Headstone Safety Audit

The intent of the audit by Xyst was to inspect memorial headstones for stability/soundness and identify any headstones that may present a risk to cemetery visitors and staff. To provide some context, in July 2000 a six-year-old child died as a result of a collapsed headstone in a UK cemetery. UK Councils responded by increasing […]
Executive Placement Parks and Facilities Manager

Xyst provided the expertise of a mature and experienced manager to cover the role for a period of 9 months. The role was both operational and managing the in-house service delivery staff covering cemeteries, parks, trails, trees, public toilets, playgrounds and minor capital projects.
Asset & Facility Risk Assessments

New councillors were worried about the risks posed to their community, so the Mackenzie District Council engaged Xyst to perform a risk assessment on a range of community facilities and assets. Xyst’s team started by performing several site assessments, including the Albury Playground, Twizel Machinery Display, and Twizel Pool, producing several advisory reports for the […]
Invercargill Cemetery Operations Review

Xyst was engaged in 2017 to undertake a review of cemetery operations at ICC and identified the existing processes used between staff and funeral directors were time consuming, expensive and had high risk of human error. There was no plans to update the Council’s corporate IT solution for cemetery bookings so Xyst identified a low […]
Cemetery Management Review

We reviewed the Council’s current bylaw, policy, standard operating procedures, forms, website and processes and practices. We have examined the Council’s current cemetery management module provided in Civica Authority and undertook a physical audit of records as they relate to interments in Charlton, Mataura, Gore and Pukerau cemeteries. We interviewed staff and funeral directors and […]