Masato and I met up at the recent ICANN meeting in London and discussed the chairing of the next meeting. I'm in the UK for several months and will be at the time of the next meeting.
We've agreed that I won't make the trek to Brisbane from the UK and that he will chair the sessions at APNIC38. We are confident that the process will work just fine.
His term as co-chair expires at the meeting but the recent changes which were made to the process mean that he will chair this meeting regardless of the outcome of the election.
You will recall we agreed that we did this so that a newly elected chair or co-chair did not have to take over a policy proposal in mid stream and that an existing chair or co-chair would see a proposal through to completion of the Last Call if Consensus was reached.
He and I will continue to work on the process via email throughout the period.